


i exist i exist i exist (scream it from a cliff and hear it echo)

by sharpandgloriousthorn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Dissociation, Hurt Peter Parker, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Whump, im feeling bad so peter must feel bad too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-09 20:52:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16457018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharpandgloriousthorn/pseuds/sharpandgloriousthorn
Summary: title inspired by "I Exist I Exist I Exist - Flatsound"inspired vaguely by recent events in my own life so who better to project on than Peter?





	i exist i exist i exist (scream it from a cliff and hear it echo)

**Author's Note:**

> ao3 apparently hates me and won’t format line breaks properly so sorry about that !

brittle fingers grip tightly to cold steel rail

he’s on top of a building, on top of a cliff, no idea where or how he got there. he’s shaking, bones rattling inside soft skin wrapped up in red and blue fabric like presents on christmas day. time has passed, he has no idea how much, how long he’s been standing there. time is irrelevant, insignificant, worthless. 

as is he.

\- - -

heartless concrete sucks heat from warm skin

he has since fallen to his knees, has fallen into a ball, head between knees, arms wrapped protectively around soft hair. his muscles seize and cramp but he does not move. he thinks briefly of the old saying that there is beauty in sadness and lets out a cynical huff of breath, where’s the beauty now? he thinks of softer times, of warmth and light and hugs from both aunt and uncle. 

are these the hardest times? or are there more ahead?

\- - - 

clay people and a gift of fire now burnt out. 

he wakes up, in bed, suit hidden neatly away, tucked in the closet alongside his fear. he goes through the motions, eats styrofoam breakfast, joins the fray of harried commuters, walks through the school doors. each moment is a rehearsed scene, each hour a new act. after all if life is a play, what’s the point in changing the lines?

he is stuck, forever on stage with no directions

\- - - 

it seems like a week, seems like an hour, but takes three months

time passes. he continues on. school, home, patrol, homework, school, home, patrol. everything ends as it starts, each stanza forming neat pages, pages growing into chapters and then he’s looking back at time and wondering where he was. cuts form and heal and disappear and are replaced anew. he wonders how she hasn’t noticed the disappearance of bandages, of antiseptic, of laughter. she still worries, he knows that, but he’s gotten good at hiding.  


a closet of skeletons, secrets, and a spandex suit

\- - - 

it begins on a cold friday night.

people had begun to disappear off the streets, the cold and late hour taking their hands and ushering them in warm houses, yellow lights spilling out windows and onto the street. he is above, perched on a rooftop watching longingly at happy families, full homes, distantly remembered jackets hanging by the door.

it begins at 3am

he is high above, ears open for trouble but finding none. smooth fabric weaved out of webs cradles his sides, uselessly trying to keep him warm. he is high above, where he feels safest. 

it begins with a heartbeat

he hears a heart racing, blood rushing from capillaries to veins to arteries. he hears a heart racing, each thump a drum, a beat to which the world operates around. he hears a heart racing, hears a heart running a million miles an hour, hears a heart beating and takes a moment to realise that it is his. 

it begins with a feeling that his hands are not his own

he is listening, reaching out with senses dialled to eleven, scrambling to find something other than this. his head is two sizes too big, each crevice of his skull filled with cotton wool, his thoughts wrapped in cobwebs now buried deep. his heart, his lungs, his foot tapping toofasttoofastoofaststopstopstoppleasenotnownotyetstop. his hands are not his own and he is standing atop a cliff screaming with a soundless voice. his hands are not his own and he shakes, brittle fingers scramble for purchase on fragile skin, he bleeds, human and red and real and alive. lungs too fast, heart even faster, he is cold and hot and alive and dead, a walking breathing corpse with delicate skin and dead eyes, a walking oxymoron. 

there are tears on his face, small droplets without a sense of time, of when they got there. he is crying and everything is toomuchtoomuchtoomuchtoohot and then he hits the ground.

it is as if he was living in a slow motion video. knees collapse first, tired from too many hours of keeping this dead man walking. heart and lungs combined (toofastoofastoofast) give no aid, each leaving no space for anything other than unbridled panic. his head connects with the ground, a resounding crack echoing softly within cotton wool skulls.

there is blood. but when is there not. always blood, sometimes others, usually his. nosebleeds, knife wounds, gunshots, close calls with the gap between door and wall, close calls with the gap between glass and suit and skin. there is blood and he is left unconcerned. there is blood and he could not care less.

\- - - 

it ends on a saturday morning

sticky red clings to once soft curls. a man is lying atop a cliff, lying atop a cold concrete building, curled in on himself. he is awake, shivering and scared, the residual adrenaline and panic not yet run its course. he is awake and things are clearer in cold morning light. lungs and heart and hands and cotton wool skull are all his again. he is awake and in motion, body moving of its own accord but this time towards safety. he is perpetually in motion, an impossible possibility, a radical idea working in theory and in practice.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [did everything feel beautiful when you let go of the idea of being anything at all](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16489688) by [gayreids](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayreids/pseuds/gayreids)




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